


Blood Moon

by scifiromance



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Imprinting, Love Triangles, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 10:10:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1144726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scifiromance/pseuds/scifiromance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post BD. When Bella is pushed over the edge, taking Jacob with her, Renesmee realises that she must show her maturity to understand what endangers her mother and her imprint, as well as the nature of imprinting itself and the idea that what remains of the human heart can still eclipse the dream of a soul mate. Renesmee/Jacob imprint, but J/B story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood Moon

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set post BD and is generally canon compliant other than in this story it wasn't Jacob who gave Renesmee the 'Nessie' nickname, let's blame that one on of the Cullens born before the Loch Ness Monster became folklore. Thanks to my beta reader, NikkiB1973.

_“Sometimes all I want is to be able to imprint on someone, anyone…”_

_“Just to break the connection.”_

_Leah Clearwater and Jacob Black, Breaking Dawn: Part 1_

_In the end, Jacob’s imprint did not break the connection, it bound him to her inescapably…_

* * *

It was impossible for her to pinpoint when exactly the dream of eternity became a nightmare. Perhaps the clue is there, at that moment when she woke up and realised that eternity was her reality now, for better or worse. That split second, before the Cullens, her family, surrounded her in relief, when she was consumed by cold, dead cold, and when she felt panic, her heart didn’t race to catch up with the feeling. Maybe she truly realised when she saw blood for the first time, and the need for it wiped her like a blank slate, to the point where Edward’s words of restraint meant nothing, his melodic voice just background noise. Otherwise, maybe it was the minutes that went past where she could ignore the baby’s cries, and know that wasn’t natural, or it could have been when she heard Jake’s involuntary growl when she finally did gather Renesmee in her arms, and with that the instinctive knowledge that he couldn’t long for just her anymore…

Thinking again though, those needles of torture only dug deep with hindsight. In that first year, when she’d been a true newborn, she’d been able to push such things aside with the exhilaration the venom brought after the pain. The sheer power of it; she’d never be clumsy, awkward or self-conscious ever again, never need to worry about the future that would now always seamlessly blend with the present in an unending life. Bella Swan was gone, she was Bella _Cullen_ now, that surname being the epitome of everything she’d admired. Fearlessness, elegance, absolute power with absolute mercy, she was all. The bloodlust had been like being set alight, burning with it from the inside out day and night, unbearable in innumerable ways. She had borne it though, had been soothed and petted when she’d almost broken down, and so had become proud of resisting. There was a trade off for tolerating that, her emotions were enhanced along with every sense, she ran through the woods as freely as Alice had envisioned, her passion for Edward, romantically and sexually, had intensified beyond her wildest dreams… Of course, her pain over Jacob’s imprint, his imprint with her _daughter_ , had been magnified also, but in the foggy bliss of that first year she somehow convinced herself that it exonerated the choices of her human life completely. She had her soul mate, and in pursuing him had given Jacob his. She’d guaranteed her daughter’s happiness forever, bringing the human most capable of loving entirely into her heart.

After that first year however… It was as if those first twelve months had been a trick of the mind, the flame of her life flaring to a new brightness just long enough to blind her to the consequences before extinguishing for good. Numbness, no rigor mortis, sneaked up on her. She gradually became indifferent to Edward’s caresses, his lullabies and protectiveness; she no longer needed any of it. Soon even the memories of their courtship began to slip through the cracks forming in her dead mind. His family wasn’t the pinnacle of togetherness and superior love, it just existed, they filled the time. Only Jacob remained remotely similar to what she’d known, her memories of him becoming clearer as others faded. The real moment she realised the nature of vampirism was the instant she’d first laid eyes on him, her first human, and his blood _sang_ to her, just as had always been described to her, back when the idea had felt so distant, so impossible. She knew then what she’d been to Edward, and for the first time cried without tears, even as she desperately shoved the urge aside and gave into the thrills of her rebirth instead. Over the years though, especially as Renesmee aged, matured into the woman she’d never allowed herself to become, it had become harder to numb herself to the one thing that still had meaning. The only emotions that still had any strength were, horribly, the jealousy she felt when the girl thoughtlessly hugged him, held his hand… It was irrational to feel it, she’d rejected Jacob’s vow of undying love, it was hypocritical to hurt when the vow became hollow. She hated him, hated him for reminding her of her human life, for taunting her with it using her _daughter_ , and despised herself for hating him, and her. In this toxic cycle, it became simple to brood on the only thing that was stronger, her need for blood. It wore her down until, for a time, she could feel little else, and was glad of that even as she still resisted actually giving into the thirst.

One day though, in the hundreds she’d begun counting down, something roused her still heart. Charlie Swan, having personally attended to a particularly vile domestic abuse case, had been shot dead by the husband in cold blood. Every dark feeling she’d ever felt as a human came rushing back ten fold as she lost one of her last links to the real world. The grief she felt unleashed everything and she let herself go. Using every ability the Quileute feared, she broke into Forks jail and took pleasure in vengeance and retribution, draining the monster of every drop of blood in his evil body. After taking that leap though, away from the emotions she’d been fighting, rage, grief, sorrow, regret, hatred for herself and others, she discovered she couldn’t withdraw back into her chaste shell. Only Jacob’s wolf, predicting with accuracy that Alice never had what she would do, mercilessly ripping her arms off and dragging her back to their two soul mates had stopped her from seizing the other inmates and her father’s colleagues too. When she woke up from _that_ nightmare, that was when her real descent began…

* * *

 

Renesmee paused on the sleek mahogany and glass landing of the Cullens’ latest real estate acquisition, a sprawling modernist folly on the Oregon/Washington border. She’d been pleased with it at the time, the family hadn’t lived this close to Forks in years, but she could now hear the price of that nostalgia through the walls. The laboured sighs and weakened gasps for air that she no longer needed were her mother’s only equivalent to tears, and somehow Renesmee found the sound more disturbing than the most distraught weeping she could imagine. All of her family felt the same she knew, even as she heard her Aunt Alice trying to coax Bella, hopelessly of course, to feed. Her mother hadn’t hunted since the day she’d killed her Grandpa Charlie’s murderer. She rejected all blood, even the ‘vegetarian’ diet of animals so lauded as the only alternative. Renesmee knew she must be weakening, could see it every time she looked into anyone’s eyes, particularly her father’s, but she herself hadn’t laid eyes on Bella Cullen since Jacob had brought her back that dreadful day, in wolf form, dragging her by half a re-grown arm. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she _wanted_ to see her mother again, not like that. They hadn’t been close for over a year and a half now in any case, since Renesmee had been informed of the true nature of her bond, her _imprint_ , with Jacob Black.

She was overwhelmed with a need to escape thoughts of her mother, and as if on cue a powerful desire to see Jacob filled her. It was easy to bask in the warmth of thoughts about him as she ran down the rest of the stairs, at vampire speed, and out of the door. It had been a shock to learn of the full significance of the imprint, she’d just graduated from high school, for the first and last time unlike her family, when her father and Jacob, with Bella nowhere in sight, had sat her down. A tiny, shameful, part of her had been repulsed, knowing that this wasn’t the normal teen romance, but considering her own supernatural nature she’d soon accepted him with an open, grateful heart which was filled to the brim with relief. During her school life, changing schools every few months as she shot up through elementary then middle and high school, she’d become painfully aware that she’d never have an ordinary, human relationship. She would stop aging, and a human wouldn’t, not to mention the fact that she had to drink blood to live. Only Jacob understood that and could love her without the threat of having to be changed someday hanging over him. They’d live a long life together, and then she’d die when he did. All these considerations meant that her reaction to the imprint had been one of relief, of never needing to be alone if she didn’t wish it.

She’d slowed down to reach Jacob’s place, a fully kitted out cottage that would have served the manager of the estate at one time, but which was now known as the ‘doghouse’ by everyone, though Aunt Rosalie had coined the term. Renesmee would’ve preferred to have him living in the house, but he needed somewhere to be free of ‘leech stink’ as he occasionally unguardedly called it, and she knew her family felt the same way about his doggy smell.

Jacob, having sensed her coming, was standing out on the porch, watching her approach. She was beautiful, even without the imprint he probably would’ve admitted that somewhat, and now she’d reached her maturity she looked to be in her mid-twenties, which, paired with the fact that phasing slowed his own aging process, made them appear to uneducated eyes to be very close in age. As soon as his imprint addled thoughts tried to make him feel happy and blessed at how well fate had set them up to fit together, he remembered that Renesmee _should_ be a first-grader, a little girl, Bella’s baby, not a woman in love with him or vice versa. In the same second that he was comparing her red-gold hair to a stunning sunset he was also chillingly reminded of fresh, flowing blood, and that if she hadn’t stolen Bella’s chocolate eyes, if they were as red as he often saw in his most vivid nightmares, she’d have more than a passing resemblance to that other red-head, Victoria.

His gut twisted as her insight about Bella hit him, but he found himself smiling at her reassuringly as he picked up on her distress. “The vamp…” He choked on the bitter word, his throat closing as the imprint protected Renesmee’s feelings, “…your family know what to do for Bella Carlie, they helped Jasper through his blood carvings.”

Renesmee smiled at the sound of her middle name on his lips. Like her mother, he’d never relished calling her ‘Nessie’ as the rest of her family still did, and when she’d been teased as a ‘Loch Monster’ in school he’d started calling her by her middle name instead. By high school, she’d registered herself as plain ‘Carlie Cullen’ just to avoid another round of embarrassment. It may have been an unusual spelling of ‘Carly’ but it was much easier to explain than Renesmee for sure. “I know, it’s just hard, Bella is stubborn.”

Jacob’s face darkened with pain, twisting his face away from her sharply as his shoulders hunched over. “Yes, she certainly is.” He ground out with difficulty. He wasn’t sure when Renesmee had stopped called Bella ‘Mom’, it was probably around the time they’d been at high school together, but she’d never picked the habit up again, around him at least. A small mercy, not needing to be reminded every few sentences that Bella was this girl’s mother. He knew himself well enough to admit that, in another life, one with no werewolves, vampires, no Bella, he might’ve been able to content himself with Renesmee without the help of an imprint, she was a good person. She was so sunny in nature that he understood Bella’s ‘personal sun’ description, but that knowledge didn’t make resigning himself to his fate any easier.

Obviously sensing his turmoil, Renesmee flopped familiarly down to sit on the porch, patting it to bring him down beside her, which he did automatically. “You know, my family might be okay with you moving to the house now, with so much distraction with Bella they understand that I need you around more than ever.” She began in a wheedling tone, clasping her cool hand over his overheated one. Renesmee’s touch didn’t have the sickening chill of full vampires, touching her was like touching a pleasantly cool drink, her white, slightly glinting skin just a few degrees cooler than a human’s. She still had a strong scent to her too, it wasn’t particularly pleasant, for him it was like having a girlfriend who’d sprayed a little too much perfume on every day, but it was eminently bearable compared to the unnatural, burning stink of the others. “I mean…” She said exuberantly, glancing around the exterior of the cottage, “This house is so small, it only has half the fixtures of the main house…”

An indulgent chuckle bubbled in Jacob’s throat but he was irked enough to suppress it. “This house is three times as big as the house I grew up in!” he snapped at her defensively, his chest tightening as he thought of his dad, whom he hadn’t seen since he’d had to go with the Cullens. Who was helping him maintain the house, hell who was helping him get out of the house? Who was checking his medication and keeping him company now that Charlie was gone?

Renesmee blanched, her face crumpling as his spurt of anger hit her like a slap. “I’m sorry Jake, I just…”

Jacob moved to rub soothing circles into her back, taking a deep breath and letting them both calm down before he spoke again, “No, I’m sorry Carlie.” He gave her a weak, lopsided smirk, “You’re just too used to living in the lap of luxury.” He didn’t like to dwell on _how_ the Cullens had gotten that luxury, which was why he’d taken as little from them as possible until, invariably, Renesmee insisted and he had to give in.

Renesmee gave a shallow sigh. “You’re right, I forget sometimes Jake.” She shifted on the porch, cuddling into his heated side, “I haven’t seen La Push in so long, and I know you want to go back for your dad. Maybe, sometime soon, the two of us could go live there for a while…”

Jacob shuddered, half from involuntary pleasure at having her so close and half from dread. “I…I’d prefer we didn’t go to La Push, I don’t need to go back.” He forced out, finding it almost impossible to go against her earnest request.

Renesmee blinked in surprise, “The pack wouldn’t and can’t hurt me Jacob…”

Jacob began to shake, only the link between them stopping him from surging away from her. “Not _everything_ is about you Renesmee!” He snarled before his tone became pleading, “Did you even stop to think while making those plans to understand that bringing your whole family down on my tribe again could trigger the wolf gene in a whole new generation?” He was left panting hard after this speech, spent from holding any negative feelings toward her.

“We don’t know that I would trigger the gene…” Renesmee countered softly, hurt but still climbing comfortingly into his lap, “But I understand if you don’t want to risk it. I can move in here, I just want to be with you, it’s okay now that I’m grown…” She paused, leaned in tight and kissed him, their first kiss.

It wasn’t what she had expected though. Feelings and images broke into her mind. A snowy mountain, the warmth of exploring hands on skin, Jacob’s joy and hope, Bella’s need and passion and _love…_ Renesmee saw them before her, like a dream image, as the sensations of the kiss faded, then that too dissipated before her eyes to leave her standing in fog. At first, only a tiny, quaint, wooden house stood out from the fog, then Jacob’s distinctive stance standing grinning beside it, kneeling his huge frame as two toddlers, a boy and a girl, ran delightedly towards him. Jacob was blurry, but these two children were crystal clear, grinning with happiness, and humanity, as they ran away from her towards Jacob. Renesmee knew with a visceral certainty that these children were _not_ hers, although that shouldn’t have been possible if they were his….

She shoved herself off of Jacob as the vision abandoned her, sprinting away from him weakly at human speed as new clarity hit her mind, as she realised that what she’d seen didn’t belong to her, but to her mother. A sob caught in her throat as he came up silently behind her, “We’re never going to live like a couple are we? You don’t see me like that, imprint or no imprint…”

“No…” Jacob croaked out with difficulty, “Not right now, but since I live to make you happy then eventually…”

“I don’t want _eventually_.” Renesmee choked out, “How can I be happy when I know that you’re not really, that you wouldn’t love me if you had a choice?”

Jacob breathed a deep sigh behind her, their conflicted emotions mixing as one. “What’s the point of seeing it like that now?” he asked hoarsely, “You’re my imprint, and I realised a long time ago that an imprint was my only shot at _any_ sort of happiness.” He slowly reached for her shoulder to turn her around, “And you have given me some happiness Carlie, more happiness than I thought was possible after…”

“But if it’s a tainted happiness…” Renesmee started to argue even as his argument began to break through her weak defences, but suddenly both she and Jacob froze, wrenched from the own troubles by the sound of Bella’s cries growing heartbreakingly wretched from inside the main house. “I want to go to her.” Renesmee muttered, “I have to, Grandpa says she won’t live another day if she doesn’t feed, I can hear him telling Uncle Emmett.” She pulled her eyes away from the house to meet those of her imprint, disturbed by the agony she saw etched in his face, “Come with me.” She found herself murmuring, though actually that last thing she wanted him to be confronted with now was the woman who was ruining their imprint.

As if he’d merely been held back for want of her permission, which was probably the case, Jacob shot towards the house before she’d even started to follow, and within less than a minute they’d barged into Bella’s bedroom, though at first Carlisle and Edward blocked their view of the main occupant. Edward was obviously horrified, but tried to tone down his objections to Jacob’s presence for his daughter’s sake, “Nessie my love, I know that the do…Jacob is able to provide comfort to you while your mother is in such distress, but seeing him won’t be good for her and I don’t think you should see her this way either. Go back downstairs.”

Jacob’s growl was deep and rumbling, “I _don’t_ take orders from you.”Edward’s gaze flicked towards Renesmee and Jacob knew the vamp was itching to reply, ‘But you do take orders from my daughter’. With Bella so at risk though, and Renesmee so desperate, he ignored the slight. “You let me try to talk some sense into her before, why not now?”

Edward’s golden eyes narrowed into venomous slits. “Knowing you, you’d tell her to never drink any blood again, you _hate_ her as she is now!”

“Edward!” Carlisle intervened sharply, “The main concern here is helping Bella, not scoring points with either her or Renesmee…”

His level voice was interrupted by a breathy one, “Jacob?” The name resounded around the room like a prayer.

“Bella?” Jacob choked out in the same tone, managing for once to stride easily away from Renesmee towards the voice. He froze when she appeared from behind the screen she had been cowering behind, sickened in a different way than usual when he locked eyes with her. She was withered, her marble flesh was melting away, her golden eyes had dimmed to a pale yellow where the black of the pupils hadn’t consumed the iris. She was being consumed from the inside out, not by a hybrid baby this time but by her own destructive guilt. “What are you doing?”

“I…” Bella began vaguely, her flawless body shaking as her gaze wandered aimlessly before setting briefly on his. “They…They want me to drink Jake…” She waved one arm helplessly towards the decanter of blood sitting on the dresser. To Jacob’s sensitive nose the contents smelled like deer’s blood. The idea that the Cullens had set it out, in that ludicrously ornate and antique crystal decanter as if it were fine brandy made him both shiver and give an internal snort of derision.

Jacob regarded her carefully, through he couldn’t stop harshness seeping into his tone as he replied, “You have to Bella, it’s what you are now.”

Bella shrank back at the reminder, “But…I can’t…” She forced out, wrapping her arms around her waist as if holding herself together, her head bowed inwards. The stance made Jacob’s heart hurt. Was she really back there? The abandoned, withdrawn, overwhelmed teenager he’d given his life to try to revive? Whatever she’d said to him before, he’d always known that she’d been driven to want to be changed by a need to escape those feelings. It seemed that, even as a vampire, her demons still haunted her. She must’ve seen something of what he was thinking in his eyes, for her voice strengthened into shrillness, “I can’t…I _won’t_ drink blood! Not again!” She paused, although she had no need to draw breath, and suddenly spun one of her arms out from around her waist to slam into the decanter of blood, sending it crashing to the floor, the crystal screeching as it shattered on the marble tiles. The sound made Bella cringe, stepping back and crouching over as if her chest hurt. “He made a sound like that…the man, he screamed…” Her gaze was distant, in another place. “He screamed so much, but not like the lady with the crucifix, she didn’t make a sound. It was the tourists who screamed…”

Jacob saw Edward flinch as if he understood her ranting, but when the vamp said nothing Jacob decided to come closer to her. “What are you talking about Bella?” he asked in a whisper, a nauseous feeling knotting in his stomach as he wondered if Bella had somehow killed more people than merely Charlie’s murderer.

“In the tunnels…in the Volturi tunnels…” Bella murmured, “I always wanted to see Italy, but…” She began to rock herself back and forth, “I had nightmares for so long, screams and red eyes and piles of bodies, my room with its open window morphing into one of those tunnels…” She locked onto Jacob’s disturbed, searching gaze and suddenly straightened, her voice becoming robotic. “They’ve stopped now. I don’t dream anymore, about anything.”

Jacob’s fingers clenched around her arm, it was like clutching an ice statute. “Why didn’t you tell me about that Bella?” he questioned hoarsely, “I could’ve…”

“I…I thought you would be angry with me…for not helping them.” She whispered, lifting her eyes to meet his, “You would have.” She told him softly, “But I didn’t. I bargained with the Volturi instead…” Her throat gave a violent spasm as her voice cracked with dry tears and when Jacob’s arms surrounded her then, for that moment comforting the traumatised teenager she’d once been, she began to shiver even harder than she had when she’d first woken. It was as if there was a glass wall between them, she could sense the heat radiating from him but it couldn’t reach her, the warmth being deflected off her impenetrable vampire shell. “I _am_ Volturi, I killed that man and I _enjoyed_ it! I enjoyed it more than anything I’ve experienced since I woke up, and I’d enjoy it again! I can’t drink Jacob…” She screamed wildly, despairingly, all while still clinging to him.

Something inside Jacob snapped, he grabbed her around the back, keeping her against him and seized her brittle hair to drag her until her face was level with his. “Stop acting the martyr Bella! You made your choice and now you’ll never have one again!” He was breathing hard, eyes blazing as they stood entwined in silence for a moment before Jacob seemed to crumple and broke it. Abruptly, he snatched up a knife-like shard of crystal from the floor. “Bella, I know you feel guilty about killing that man, and you should, although I would’ve killed that bastard myself for what he did to Charlie, God help me. But I can’t let you have your way on this, if you break down and kill someone else that’ll be on _my_ head…” He held the shard like a sacrificial dagger over his other arm and unflinchingly sliced open one of the veins bulging through his arm, “Drink from _me_ Bella please, because if you take the life of anyone else I _will_ kill you.”

Time seemed to slow down as that first drop of blood fell from Jacob’s arm. Renesmee found herself lurching unwillingly forward, her vision zeroing in on her Jacob as she caught a whiff of his blood. Her teeth began to pulsate with need and she felt the sickly sweet taste of her own venom flood her mouth uncontrollably. She saw her mother’s nostrils flare, her face consumed by that same darkness for an instant, before she tried, weakly, to force herself back, looking up at him with mournful eyes not permitted the release of crying. “I’m already dead Jake.”

Jacob’s grip on her tightened as she said that, the tears rolling down his face were for both of them, falling to mingle with the blood now gushing from his arm. A low, determined growl left his chest and he relentlessly shoved the bleeding limb into her mouth. That was too much for Bella and she sank to her knees, caressing his arm with her mouth, taking in the leaking blood, without biting him. That action struck Renesmee as painfully, spine-tinglingly erotic for that moment before the thick tension was cut by Bella finally losing control, her teeth sinking deep into Jacob’s wound as her eyes closed. Renesmee choked on a gasp, falling forward herself, as the agony of the bite for Jacob was transmitted to her. “Jake…” She forced out desperately as her father froze halfway to her, stuck between going to his wife or daughter. Renesmee barely noticed him though, her attention was fixed on Jacob as the excruciating pain increased, struck by the fact that he was unflinching, utterly stoic as he endured the blood being drained from him as if nothing was happening. In that moment, Renesmee wanted to attack her mother, _kill_ her for touching Jake, but another part of her wanted to be the one who was drinking from him… Those torturous thoughts, as well as the pain, finally pushed her over the edge. “ _Jacob_!” she screamed out agonisingly.

The imprint only reasserted itself fully then, Jacob’s big eyes, which had changed from human to wolf several moments before, blinked once. “Bells…” He murmured faintly.

At the sound of his voice, Bella woke from the bloodlust, her eyes, now a vivid scarlet, snapping open before she wildly pushed Jacob’s out of her mouth and flew backwards, her hard body crashing so hard against the windowpane that it cracked. Her starkly red lips stretched into a blood-curdling scream as she registered what she had done, becoming more hysterical as Edward strode fearfully towards her, “Bella! We have no idea what _werewolf_ blood could do to you…”

“What…What about the venom?” Renesmee cried out, a sob building in her throat as she saw Jacob begin to shake. “I’ll suck it…”

“No.” Jacob broke in hoarsely, “You shouldn’t Carlie.”

“I will do it.” Carlisle interrupted firmly, giving Jacob’s shoulder a brief squeeze as he shot his granddaughter a compassionate look. “I have practice.” Jacob nodded stiffly and held his arm up to Carlisle, who expertly drained the wound of venom within a few moments. “You’re safe now Jacob, thank you.”

Jacob swallowed hard, the shaking convulsing his body becoming more violent before he burst out of the room and bounded downstairs. Renesmee inhaled sharply as she felt him phase as soon as he was outside, running as fast as his wolf legs would carry him. A haunted, agonised howl sliced through the air and both Bella and her daughter flinched. The eerie sound seemed to blanket Bella for a moment before her huge, piercingly red eyes met Renesmee’s, Jacob’s blood’s drying on her marble cheeks. “I’m…I’m…so sorry…Renesmee…”

Renesmee had to gulp back the few tears her hybrid body would grant her, her anger evaporating to be replaced by grief and pity. Bella looked so irretrievably broken. “I know Mom.” She whispered before turning on her heel to follow Jacob like a streak of lightning.

She had to trail the wolf for several miles, deep into the surrounding forests, before their imprint gave her enough sense of exactly where he was to find him. Renesmee knew that Jacob must’ve been aware, however dully, of her presence behind him, but even as the wolf’s beautiful russet fur glimmered like a beacon just in front of her Jacob didn’t slow, and it took a final, sapping surge of energy from her to be able to swerve in front of him. “Jacob!” she called out desperately as her legs and Jacob’s paws almost connected in the dust before he finally skidded to a halt.

A savage growl of rage built in his chest as the wolf stared at her for a split second without recognition, but as soon as that chilling instant passed the wolf sank submissively to her feet, one massive shudder running over the creature before Jacob’s naked, shivering, vulnerable body replaced it. Something between a groan and a sob left him as he curled inwards, gazing up at her unseeingly.

“Jacob…” Renesmee choked out again, feeling wetness build up in her parched eyes as she saw that the wound in his arm had already healed, excepting the two silvery parallel semi-circles that her mother’s bite had branded him with, probably forever. “Jacob, how could you let this go so far?” she asked in utter anguish.

Jacob took a laboured breath, his hands clawing at the grass around him for non-existent support. “I don’t know…” Tears rolled mercilessly down his face even as his body quaked with fighting the wolf, “I never…wanted…” He forced out with difficulty, “I just wanted to make…Mom proud, look after…my dad, finish school…be a mechanic eventually maybe…” He choked again, seeming to stop breathing as he screwed his eyes shut, “I…I never even got to finish my Rabbit…” He whispered hoarsely.

“Rabbit?” Renesmee echoed in confusion, kneeling to try to hug him, “Jake, has the venom made you delirious? Will I go and get Grandpa Carlisle?”

Jacob was beyond hearing her questions, and though he didn’t resist her embrace, he was completely limp in her arms. Suddenly, he was no longer the strong protector Renesmee had always thought of, but a lost little boy. “Bells…” He breathed shallowly into her shoulder, “Bells…”

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please review. I've already finished chapter 2, and am working on chapter 3, so it should be updated relatively regularly.


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